Corn and Picket Fences

I realize that it is still winter time but it is never too early to be thinking about strategies for improving the corn crop you are going to be putting in come spring. Well believe it or not, there is a tie in between the corn you are going to grow and a picket fence. Let's draw a verbal picture. Imagine if your fence posts didn’t stand up straight. They would not act as a sufficient barrier or withstand the elements. The same goes for your corn. If your plants don’t emerge evenly, it will be difficult for them to reach their full potential, even with additional care and attention later in the season. Professor Emerson Nafziger, Ph.D., University of Illinois, is an agronomist who specializes in grain crops, soil fertility and crop management. Dr. Nafziger

shares with us the challenges that can occur at harvest if there was uneven emergence: “Our biggest concern with uneven emergence is that early in the season, if a corn plant gets substantially behind its neighbor or if small plants get damaged to the point where they are two or three leaf stage is behind their neighbors, then there is a pretty good chance that they are going to yield substantially less. The neighboring plants may yield a little bit more because they have a little bit more room but the overall net effect of that is going to be some loss in yield.”